Spanish police free infant held by prostitution gang

Spanish police have freed a two-year-old boy who was held by a Nigerian gang who forced his mother to work as a prostitute, the interior ministry said Tuesday.

"The child was the son of one of the victims of the gang, which ran a prostitution network in Italy," it said in a statement.

"He was held to force his mother to continue her activity."

The operation began with the arrest of two men and four women, all Nigerians.

The gang, based in the southern Spanish city of Seville," recruited women from Nigeria and made them come to Spain and elsewhere in Europe to force them to work as prostitutes to pay off a debt of 50,000 euros (70,000 dollars)," the statement said.

It said police freed "three women from sexual exploitation" and the investigation is continuing to try and save the other victims of the gang.